Transfer ? Primary to Secondary

Why would you transfer from primary to secondary,let it sit 2 weeks then transfer from secondary back to primary to prepare for bottleling?
If you have brand new bottles do you have to decontaminate them?How long
before I will be able to sample my Porter after bottleling?

1) You shouldn't transfer back to primary for bottling, you should use a bottling bucket. Many of us don't even use a secondary, and just keep the beer in primary for 3-4 weeks before bottling/kegging.

2) New bottles should still be sanitized. You can use a no rinse sanitizer like starsan. Or you can use a weak bleach solution that will require rinsing.

3) The mininum recommended time for drinking bottled beer for best carbonation is 3 weeks. Still, many of us sample at the 1 and 2 week points as well. Nothing wrong with that either, unless all your beer is gone at three weeks

WayneTree said:

Why would you transfer from primary to secondary,let it sit 2 weeks then transfer from secondary back to primary to prepare for bottleling?

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You don't. Just transfer from primary to bottling bucket when the beer is ready.

WayneTree said:

If you have brand new bottles do you have to decontaminate them?How long
before I will be able to sample my Porter after bottleling?

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You should clean and sanitize the bottles, whether new or not.

You'll be able to sample it at bottling time before adding the priming sugar (your hydrometer sample). Then I'd leave it alone for two weeks and crack another one open at that point to check on the carbonation. It'll keep getting better for several weeks after that before it peaks.

WayneTree said:

Why would you transfer from primary to secondary,let it sit 2 weeks then transfer from secondary back to primary to prepare for bottleling?
If you have brand new bottles do you have to decontaminate them?How long
before I will be able to sample my Porter after bottleling?

Click to expand...

slight error on your part. After secondary you auto siphon to bottling bucket. The whole point of this is to introduce beer to priming sugar evenly this means every bottle will be evenly carbonated. Not to be a jerk but you should really read up on the basics so you dont ruin a batch and throw away money.
I

My primary is my secondary. It’s a bucket with a spigot. I ferment in it then either siphon or use the spigot (siphon beers with a lot of sediment) to get the beer into another (clean) bucket without disturbing the sediment at the bottom. While it is in this temporary bucket I clean the fermenter and then drain the temporary bucket back into the primary for some more settlement, usually a week. I use isinglass at the time of transfer back into the primary but that is just me, seems to speed things up. I bottle prime so for me batch priming would require moving it again and do like the above describe. I get some sediment at the bottom of the bottles but very little. I think the key is to develop a process you like with what you have that will keep the sediment out of your finished beer. My techniques are crude and basic but work well. If you are going to have a lot of questions later, best to go with the most popular methods of the experienced. Just wanted you to understand what is trying to be accomplished.

As I'm sure you gathered, the reason for using a secondary at all is to further clean the beer. Usually you end up with about an inch and a half of trub in the bottom of the primary. What I like to do is transfer the beer from the primary to the secondary to separate it from all that trub. If you are careful, you can do this and leave 95% of the trub behind. Then let the beer sit in the secondary for a week to settle out some more. On bottling day, I siphon the beer from the secondary to the bottling bucket being careful now to leave that last bit of trub behind. Doing this I get a minimal amount of sediment in my bottles.

I'm still pretty new but on last few batches have vowed to not open a bottle until 6 weeks. I have found, without fail, that the beer is not ready before then and if you taste it early and it has a weird flavor you can't sleep at night worrying that it is messed up.

Dennis

My first batch ever and I messed up I should have mixed primary in the non spiggoted pail.What a dummy I am.The the secondary would be ready to bottle out of spiggot DUH!

WayneTree said:

My first batch ever and I messed up I should have mixed primary in the non spiggoted pail.What a dummy I am.The the secondary would be ready to bottle out of spiggot DUH!

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If I understand what you are saying you can still bottle out of the spigot, just siphon it into that bucket when you are ready to bottle and from there you can also batch prime. You didn't mess anything up from what I understand.

No problem - sounds like you did the right thing. When it is time to bottle, heat up a small saucepan of water and dissolve your priming sugar at a rate of 1oz per gallon of beer. Cool, dump into your bucket with a spigot, and then rack your beer into the spigot-bucket. You're then ready to bottle.